Poland-Lithuania, before another hundred years has elapsed,…

Poland-Lithuania, before another hundred years has elapsed, will have virtually ceased to function as a coherent and genuinely independent state.

The commonwealth's last martial triumph had occurred in 1683 when King Jan Sobieski drove the Turks from the gates of Vienna with a cavalry charge.

Poland's important role in aiding the European alliance to roll back the Ottoman Empire is rewarded with territory in western Ukraine by the Treaty of Karlowicz (1699).

Nonetheless, this isolated success does little to mask the internal weakness and paralysis of the Polish-Lithuanian political system.

For the next quarter century, Poland will often be a pawn in Russia's campaigns against other powers.

Augustus II of Saxony (r. 1697- 1733), who succeeds Jan Sobieski, involves Poland in Peter the Great's war with Sweden, incurring another round of invasion and devastation by the Swedes between 1704 and 1710.